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poeton I stood there, an American citizen, sexually assaulted by a government official

At the minimum it is sexual battery [1] and sexual imposition [2] and it could be argued that it was gross sexual imposition [3]. Ohio doesn't even use the phrase "sexual assault" in its laws about sex offenses [4]. The point is, quibbling about terminology is silly. Any reasonable human being understands what the author of the blog post is getting at. She was touched in a sexual way without her consent, without any foreknowledge of the event, and under some duress. Whatever you want to term the event is irrelevant.

[1] http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/2907.03

[2] http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/2907.06

[3] http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/2907.05

[4] http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/2907

poeton According to the IRS you are a private contractor employed by Google

The richest man in Rome once said that you can't consider yourself truly rich unless you can afford your own private army. ;) Even more interesting is the fact that Crassus acquired his wealth by (1) declaring rich people enemies of the state and seizing their assets and (2) purchasing houses that were burning down and then putting out the fire with his own men. Unless you're an anarcho-capitalist, you'll certainly recognize that a representative government is necessary to put a stop to such behaviors.

poeton Should We Do Y Combinator? We're further along than most

There are a number of people with extensive startup experience on HN who don't think YC is worth it. Thomas and the guys from 37signals come to mind. There's a lot of experience and validation that comes from bootstrapping that YC doesn't provide.

poeton According to the IRS you are a private contractor employed by Google

Can you write a few sentences about why the principle of taxing income is wrong and what you propose instead? The salary of my first job is largely a function of the fact that I was born in the United States and educated by some of the best public institutions in the world. It's a fact that I would be paid less had I been born a citizen of a different country. On a simple level it seems very logical to me that my income be taxed because it reflects the benefits I have received from living in the US.

poeton According to the IRS you are a private contractor employed by Google

Arguing with facts, good. Using terminology for the police that an angsty teenager would use, bad. Moreover, the target of your animosity is misguided. Baring obvious ethical problems, I expect our law enforcement to enforce a law to the fullest extent. And as determined by the nation as a whole, Marijuana laws are not an obvious ethical problem. It's not a police officers prerogative to ignore the law, even when it will probably change in the next decade or two.

poeton TSA encounter at SAN

These rules have a simple justification. If an attacker would like to breach airport security but is allowed to walk away once he has started the screening process, he simply needs to continue to try over and over again until he finds a vulnerable location. The Supreme Court has supported this idea [1] and I'm afraid that he may actually get legal action taken against him. :-/

[1] http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2007/08/court-says-trav/

poeton TSA encounter at SAN

That's not true for police officers in two party notification states; I'm not sure whether this applies to private citizens or not.

In Illinois and other two party notification states, you can't record audio of police officers in public places [1]. Video is fine, but since all video cameras record audio, it's a bit of a Catch-22. People get arrested all the time in two party notification states for video taping law enforcement and it's because of the audio function of their device.

[1] http://www.aclu-il.org/featured/2010/Complaint-ACLUvAlvarez....

poeton TSA encounter at SAN

Imagine how difficult it would be if you had to fight for your liberties in the first place. Consider situations like these the cost of maintenance. If you don't have the financial means to bear risk like this man did, there are certainly other ways to participate like calling your representatives and writing letters.

poeton TSA encounter at SAN

I'm not sure what rule or law you are referring do, but I'm guessing no. Illinois is a "two party" state as well and you cannot record audio of anyone with their consent, including a public official acting in a public capacity. However (at least in Illinois) this law does not apply to video. It is a relic from some wiretapping legislation that is being inappropriately applied to citizens attempting to document their experiences with public officials.

poeton Son, as soon as someone puts their hands on you...

I upvoted you. It's a good story and far more common than most people would like to believe. But I would caution you against generalizing your anecdotal evidence to the profession of teaching as a whole. Some teachers would do exactly what you did and throw the bully's out and the vast majority wouldn't blame the victim. In my relatively large (but admittedly still anecdotal) experience with CPS and public suburban schools, I've only seen teachers close to what you describe in a small fraction.

poeton Student who hacked Bill O'Reilly gets 30 months

Does that mean he went after this information, or more likely one of the computers in the botnet happened to have such information residing on it. It's possible he didn't know of any financial information...

No it is not possible. Had you actually read the above references as you claimed you would know that after executing a search warrant the FBI found credit card numbers and SSNs on computers in his dorm room. It's in Section 12 of the FBI document. Sure, maybe that was a result of a chat room he was logging. Maybe he didn't specifically go after this information himself. But at the very least he still chose to retain that information on his computer and at worst he did indeed go after the information himself.

poeton Student who hacked Bill O'Reilly gets 30 months

I'm familiar with the general arguments you are presenting but they don't hold up in this situation. This case is clearcut. It is not some poor kid being beat down by the system. It is a computer criminal being sentenced to a punishment that fits his crimes. I suggest you read the references I cited above and take note of the wide array computer crime the defendant was involved in.

You're also exaggerating. The defendant does get to have the end of his twenties. He's going to be out of jail when he's 26.

poeton 17% leave their job due to insufficient recognition

Another (frankly more likely) possibility is that people think they deserve more recognition than they actually do. This post is based on the premise that it is the employer's fault and that doesn't necessarily follow.

poeton Student who hacked Bill O'Reilly gets 30 months

According to the charges that were filed [1], the defendant also played a role in the creation of the botnet used in the attack. In addition to the DDoS attack there is the issue of accessing machines he was not authorized to. He pled guilty [2], so I don't think 2.5 years is that surprising.

[1] http://www.justice.gov/usao/ohn/news/2010/Mitchell%20Frost%2...

[2] http://www.ohio.com/news/break_news/95045294.html

poeton World's largest association of pilots boycotts body scanners

The machines are capable of storing images. Straight from the mouth of Gale Rossides, the Deputy Administrator of the TSA [1]. The functionality is supposed to be disabled after an install, but such safeguards seem tenuous at best.

[1] http://www.infowars.com/media/tsadoc.pdf

poeton Full Hacker News database for download (posts, comments, points, date, username)

This entire thread is people taking my analogy and shooting in the face. The point is this: jut because a crime is trivial and likely to happen doesn't mean we shouldn't blame the criminal. Yes, you're an idiot if you leave the keys in the ignition of your expensive car and you're even more of an idiot if you're surprised your car got stolen. But that doesn't make stealing it any less of a crime or the criminal any less responsible.

poeton Full Hacker News database for download (posts, comments, points, date, username)

It's not surprising that words in a public forum are misappropriated, just like it's not surprising that a Mercedes with the keys in the ignition will be stolen. But that doesn't make either act any less illegal or deplorable. The law is clear in this case. Without any agreement to the contrary, the copyright still remains with the author.

poeton A hell of a time

This is not correct. In the United States you must prove an intent to defame. Sure he can sue for liable, but he wont win unless he can prove intent. Even if the charges against him are not proven. This may seem harsh to you, but read about liable in the UK to see what a train wreck the other alternative is.

poeton Hypertextuality: how a programmer reads TS Eliot's 'The Waste Land'

I couldn't imagine a worse way to read literature (although hats off to the creator for the hard work). The beauty of The Waste Land comes from slowly unwrapping the references and allusions yourself. As we know from exploratory programming, there's value in the process of both discovery and understanding. This medium removes discovery.

On a different note, certainly the first read of any poem shouldn't be as cluttered and busy as what's presented here.

poeton A hell of a time

I'd fire him in a second with sufficient corroboration of the story. There's a non-negligible chance that such poor decision making isn't confined to just women.

poeton How to get Paul Graham to take you to lunch and review your start-up idea

They're outliers? There are physical realities that happen to your brain that make it more difficult to learn as you get older. Now, I certainly recognize that many aspects of the current education system are overblown. But you're going to have a difficult time convincing me preschool is as dispensable as college.

poeton Lars Rasmussen: Why I quit Google to join Facebook

So then why isn't Facebook as notable as laying the first landlines across the US? Sure it's not the first time people have been communicating in this way, but by your argument Facebook is implementing the way that the current generation communicates with each other. Now there certainly are nuances to the situation; there are parts about communicating through Facebook that are richer [1] and also scarier [2] than the telephone. But if your claim is that Facebook has taken place of the telephone for certain types of communication, I fail to see how that isn't changing the world.

[1] Sending various forms of media to each other, having a historical record of communication, etc.

[2] Privacy controls, control over your data, etc.

poeton Ask HN: What is so special in working for Facebook?

Bad example. Without toilets our cities would be disease ridden, awful places. You're obviously trolling, but I just thought I'd point that out. :)

poeton Icing PayPal: How We Did It

I know the criticism is unfair, which is why I tried to couch it. :)

poeton Ask HN: What's the best way for foreigners to incorporate in the States?

Messing up incorporation is something that is very annoying and time consuming to undo. Talk to a lawyer. I guarantee you the extra money you spend isn't going to make or break your business.

poeton Icing PayPal: How We Did It

The idea is excellent, but the execution could have been better. I don't want a financial company I use to have a plan revolving around running away from a security guard. Had they done some social engineering or even obtained some sort of permit through their lawyers to leave the ice there, I would have been much more impressed. After all, who can say no to an up and coming ice sculptor wanting to display his work outside a hotel for a day? Still though, great idea.

poeton Ask HN: I made $1.01 yesterday. What next?

Oh what a poor state the world would be in if everyone believed that. :)

Side note: I have no problem with the OP's website.

poeton Sidejack Prevention

Even assuming a secure implementation of this system (unlikely), what's to stop a man in the middle attack? When you're browsing at the coffee shop, I just lie to you about the server's public key.

Now sure, you could access the server one from a trusted connection to get the public key. But then when someone spoofs the public key you get a large and nasty error message saying the public key has changed. And history tells us that security can't safely be reduced to that type of user interface problem.

Long story short, you're massively underestimating how valuable it is that web browsers ship with certificates installed. When in doubt, don't re-implement SSL. ;)

poeton Things Paul Graham is wrong about

It seems like you misunderstand my comment. The idea I'm getting at is that it's usually something else besides the programming that is the bottleneck, not that bottlenecks don't exist. You're going to hit architectural and database issues long before you hit Ruby's GC in most applications.

poeton Things Paul Graham is wrong about

It's most certainly not the approach I take to learning. It is, however, the approach I take towards the conical "I disagree with Paul Graham" blog posts. Why? Because everyone's a critic. If the critic in question doesn't demonstrate a general understanding of the subject matter I do not invest my time. In this case, it was a misreading of an essay, but it really could be anything. I apply this approach to critics of all kinds. Do I apply this approach to published essayists or programmers with well known software? Not usually, because getting published or becoming well known is a sort of vetting in itself. But a vetting process is certainly necessary for blog posts on criticism or some random repository on Github. There just isn't enough time in the day to dive into things that don't have a solid foundation. Why would I read a 5000 line Ruby program whose initial functions are written poorly? At best I'll end with one or two nice tricks and a large headache.